Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Currently I am rather embroiled in writing my next book. (I have written two others, which are parts one and two of a story cycle. They are slightly amateurish but I am still proud of them.)

My current work of which I am around 56,000 words into is Part One of what may turn out to be as many as a 7 or 8 part epic series (My ideas are always way more epic than I can too justice to!). It concerns two children who are born on opposite sides of the world on the same day. Their names are Caleb and Christian, and little do they or anyone around them know, but they are predestined to both make the most crucial choice that life anywhere in the universe has ever before made. One has a life of tragedy and emotional emptiness, the other a hard life that is overcome with spiritual truth and love. They are the yin and the yang, the destroyer and the protector so to speak. The overarching story is one of epic scope and grandeur, that encompasses the fate of life as we know it, but it is also a narrow personal story of emotional struggle, and the question of overcoming hardship, and dealing with the problem of finding meaning, and living without love.

Book One is called 'Clockwork Heart' and is sorta like 'Batman Begins' in that it is an origins story detailing Caleb's life and how to came to be who he is. It has a lot of mystery and intrigue as paranormal events abound this newborn child and his father Jonathan is embroiled in a decidedly shady career that seems to wield a mysterious agenda that is worldwide in scope. His mother Mary is a Southern belle plucked from a life of violence and abuse by Jonathan and whisked into a high rolling money drenched world beyond her comprehension. So grateful she is to him that she asks no questions, not knowing exactly who her husband really is, and the fact that his job may be placing their only son in peril. Book Two is another Origins story but this time for Christian, tentatively titled 'Forever May Not be Long Enough'. When it's done I will likely make it available for free for anyone who is interested in reading it.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Once upon a time there was darkness. Impenetrable darkness that noone could escape. The world was lost in a hazy fog of malfeasance and incredulity and none realised just how abysmally crap things we take for granted really are. Then one day, from the North came a shining crusader. Clad in silver shining armor and brandishing a flaming halberd of truth and victory he sallied forth on his thunder horse of enlightenment. From that day forth the dark world was brightened at last by the light. That crusader was me. And his flaming halberd was MY RANTING. Let's get to it.

1. Ambition

HA. HAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!! Oh sorry, you must excuse me, but that is my usual automatic reaction when some sorry societybot informs me that I really need higher ambitions for my life. No. No I do not. And I shall explain why, whilst attempting to be civil and not go over the top about how much of a TURD MUNCHING IGNORAMUS you are. Ambition is fucking pointless. Am I the only one with enough foresight to realise that on my deathbed when I'm looking back over my life I'm not going to give two fucking flying shits about how much money I earned or how many people I stepped on to get the amazing right to waste 8 hours of my day for slightly more useless wads of fucking coloured paper than the rest of you?? I DONT CARE. Just because you are a totally indoctrinated brainless robot who subsumes your identity to the dominant will of society, doesnt mean I have to be. And you look all shocked when I tell you this. Like "What do you mean there are other ways to live your life?!". Listen you barrel of mentally constipated blowfish, I didnt choose to get born into this dirty infested shithole of a world, and now you expect me to dedicate my life to slaving away doing something I hate just for the right to survive?! Why the hell have we not rebelled against this bullshit? Oh wait I know, its because the majority of us havent had an original thought in about 50 years. Take your phony materialistic ambition and shove it.

2. Idiots who take everything on the news as gospel.

Hooo boy. Really?? Are there STILL people out there that think the mainstream media is telling them the truth about the world?? Apparently there are and they are fucking plentiful. Here, I have a giant black sack ready for them all to crawl into. It's marked on the side with 'Gullible Indoctrinated Fuckwits'. Please hurry up and climb in so I can biff you off a cliff and never have to hear your scurrilous "That can't be true, its not on the news" bleating ever again. Well you know what? I've never heard that the sky is blue on the news either. GUESS IT MUST BE FUCKING PINK. Here's something to ponder over. 90% of the stories on the news or in legacy media newspapers are sourced from either the Associated Press or Reuters. So basically all your precious news comes from TWO companies. With vested interest in doing nothing but pander to materialism, scare your balls off so you remain dependent and enforce the fact that your political system is just SO DAMN ADEQUATE AND PERFECT. Tell me they are unbiased purveyors of the truth. Fuck off. Last week, there was a printing malfunction and the NZ Herald didnt go on sale until midday Saturday. You should have seen the level of whining from people who didnt have their newspaper to read. Fucking Lemmings. "Oh no, I have no news to read. Whatever shall I do?" Gee I dont know, maybe think for yourself?! What am I thinking, that would involve intellectual integrity and a non sheep herd mentality!

3. The RETURN of swine flu hysteria.

Oh good lord no not this shit again. Obviously life is just not life without some mindless doom on the horizon to be scared witless about. OH NO SWINE FLU. WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. No actually, you're not. You're more likely to die getting run over by a car after tripping over a turtle on the sidewalk. Maybe the next big media brou ha ha should be over "Turtle tipping fatalities reach epic proportions. Government reccomends compulsory anti turtle vaccine". Then we can all infect Scott by talkign to him about how worrying this whole fucking turtle business is. Because at least then I can laugh, because the word turtle is just mindlessly funny. Right now when I hear about swine flu I just want to eat my own face.

4. The demise of Reality TV.

Back in the year 2000 Reality TV was born with a show called 'Survivor'. It was innovative, it was gritty, it was real, it was an awesome insight into the human psyche. Ever since then Survivor has continued on its merry way racking up 20 awesome seasons which I am currently obsessed with. For example, watch Survivor: Vanuatu, where the tribes begin as all men vs all women. The men are openly honest with each other and make it plain that they are going to vote out the young strong bucks, everything out in the open. The women immediately get passive aggressive, catty and whine about each other behind their backs. As the season goes on, the male stupidity shines through as they fall pray to the women power alliance and get picked off one by one until only Chris, a lovable truck driver remains. At this point, the women go batshit insane on each other with double crossing and completely forget about Chris, who silently with honour and respect lets them eat each other alive, snakes his way to the final two and then wins the game because the women on the jury hate the final remaining woman so much!! What a fascinating dynamic, and really one of the most socially interesting things on television.

BUT WAIT. THIS SECTION SO FAR HAS BEEN NICE. WE CANT FUCKING HAVE THAT. You see, my real gripe is with the sea of lugubrious trash that this genre has spawned recently. The Amazing Race was decent. The Bachelor and the Bachelorette was cheesy and socially unacceptable stereotypic garbage. Then we get Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire and my head explodes. FUCK THIS SHIT. Let's all just reinforce some more fucking societal stereotypes about the only worthwhile people are rich and own a boatload of white horses or something. AND THEN WE GET THE HILLS AND JERSEY SHORE. Oh dear sweet lord almighty. Despite the fact that the collective IQs of the cast members of both these shows probably add up to something rivalling a gelatinous amoeba, that is not my main gripe. My main gripe is how this utter toff contributes NOTHING OF VALUE TO FUCKING ANYTHING. If I wanted to watch prima donnas who take themselves too seriously gossip and have wanton sex with everybody... oh wait I'll stop there, BECAUSE I DONT WANT TO WATCH THAT. This brain corrosive shit is likely going to be responsible for an entire generation of young girls wanting to be fucking Heidi when they grow up. Oh wait, did you say the new series "surprise, you're dating a transvestite" is coming soon? OH I LOOK FORWARD TO IT WITH BAITED FUCKING BREATH.

That's it for today. As usual, if you dont agree with me, I'm sure eventually your opinion will find it's way into the Encyclopedia of WRONG. ;)

Friday, September 17, 2010

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter." - J.B.S Haldane

The most startling, brilliant and concise refutation of believing in materialism I've ever come across. Inspires me to rant against it some more :P

Was reading an article on music and how materialism has no good explanation for it. Well, that's not unusual as materialism has no good explanation for fucking ANYTHING, but this one struck a bit close to home.

"Note that the choices materialism offers here are

(1) music is useful for food, sex, or murder, or

(2) music is a useless distraction.

Take that, Chopin. We always knews youse was a wimp."

The third option is that music is part of the spiritual nature of the human - and therefore neither useful nor useless in the senses above, but is a road to becoming a fully developed human being. Fucking idiots. Music SOUNDS like emotions FEEL. Art LOOKS like emotions FEEL. Same goes for books and movies. We latch on to these things for many reasons, to quantify the ineffable, to revel in the majesty of concepts and feelings or to get out into the outside world things held on to inside. I am familiar with all these things... not so familiar with using it for food, sex or fucking murder. I'm pissed off now. :P

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

I don't know about you, but I'm having a very nostalgic couple of weeks. Sometimes I get myself into moods where I can do nothing but lament all the good things that have passed by in life. This could be because I'm just a depressed emo without the OTT makeup and poetry writing OR it could be because looking at the world around us and comparing it to the world of our childhood... the world has just gone spiralling off the cliff towards the sheer drop known as complete and utter SUCKTACULATION. See, I just made that word up. Webster's get the hell onto it for your next edition. So in this edition I invite you all to take a walk down memory lane... consider all the things that made your life meaningful, and how they now COMPLETELY SUCK.

1. Cartoons

Ah cartoons... do you remember back at school, when the only thing that got you through the day was the thought that you could get home and for 2 straight hours take in the joy of cartoons?? Do you remember pretending to be sick so you could stay home all day and watch Cartoon Network? I sure do. They were the good times. And why did we do that? Because cartoons 10-15 years ago were QUALITY!! Let's prove my point shall we? First we had CAPTAIN PLANET. Where a group of teenagers with bad haircuts used the power of nature to banish evil polluting no-goodniks with the help of slightly feminine looking captain planet!! This show taught us many important lessons about life. Like whoever has the power to burn things is definitely the coolest, and that the power of the heart is the most useless power imaginable. Seriously, what can you do? Feel emotion and talk to a monkey. Big fucking shit. I'd rather create tidal waves or wind storms anyday. Oh and there's probably something in there about not polluting or something, I never really paid attention to that part. And it had a kickass theme song. "Captain Planet! He's a hero! Gonna take pollution down to zero! He's our powers magnified, and he's fighting on the planet's side!" And what do we have now?? DORA THE FUCKWIT EXPLORER. The little Spanish bitch that is so nice to everybody that I'm pretty sure she's going to grow up to be a stripper or cheap prostitute. The only lesson she teaches is how to switch off the television within one split second.

Moving on... what other quality defined cartoons of my youth? STREET SHARKS! A cartoon about a gang of sharks on rollerblades who fought against a gang of evil dinosaurs... on rollerblades. It taught us the lesson that sharks were misunderstood, and dinosaurs were pure evil. It also told us that sharks do well on blades. Now what crap do we have?? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS. This stupid porous son of a bitch is a moronic waste of everyone's time and teaches a generation of children that burgers can be cooked without problem UNDER THE SEA. No wonder the next generation is fucked. In one final example... when I was young we had SAMURAI PIZZA CATS. A ball bouncingly entertaining cartoon about a gang of cats who made pizza by day and defended the world in a giant cat robot against no good niks at night. It had the best theme song ever. See look: "Samurai Pizza Cats! They're so bad! They've got more fur than any turtle ever had!" Genius!! How can you argue with that?? Now we have shit like YU GI OH, where people play cards for the right to own the world. How fucking riveting. You have raped my childhood cartoons... you used to be so good.

2. The Bible

Yup, THAT Bible. I remember back in primary school, when we had that compulsory Bible class when they tried to brainwash us into becoming mindless fear dominated adults. Now, that part wasn't good... but I was only like 10 so it didn't exactly register with me that they were trying to ruin my life at the time. What did register with me was all the kickass stories!! I mean seriously, how cool is Noah's Ark, Jonah's whale, Moses' escape from Egypt, Jesus being born in the manger and David vs Goliath?? As a child, these things are fun... and then you grow up. And you read the Bible for yourself. And you realise people actually want you to take it as a non fiction text. And then everything goes to shit. The Bible is a true exercise in duality as it is both the best fiction text ever and the WORST non fiction text ever. As a child nobody ever fucking told me that if I did my fucking shoelaces up wrong that it'd be hell for me. They just told me cool stories with giants, whales and plagues of toads in them. As a child nobody ever fucking told me that Old testament God butchers, rapes and murders children for his own personal enjoyment. Sigh. My youth has been corrupted.

3. Public Pools

Ah the public pools... those sweet hydroslides, balance beam and slippery pole extravaganza. Where we'd swim around all happy all day while the adults sat up on the concrete bleachers reading Woman's Day or some shit. But as we grew up... somehow these public pools that held so much merriment started to COMPLETELY SUCK. I think it was the fact that we as grown up people realise that swimming in a public pool is like swimming in a large collection of other kids' urine. And there was always that shady guy in the changing rooms who just seemed to stay in there far too long... OH MY GOD. Stupid fucking world, why must you take everything from me??

4. The opposite sex.

Wow, controversial. But let me explain. When we were 13,14,15 years old the opposite sex was a truly magical being. For us boys, the girl represented some magical fairy princess with shimmering skin who glided gracefully above the ground. They were everything us grubby, puppy fat boys were not and we wanted it. For the girls, the boys represented that fairy tale of prince charming; big, strong, dark and mysterious. They were everything you weren't and you wanted it. Then what happened?? Well you realise the truth. Boys are nothing more than sex obsessed dullards who rant all day about cars and sports and completely miss every last emotional signal girls send them. And girls are baffling non logical creatures who will break your heart and shatter your dreams for reasons that only make sense on the planet EVERYTHINGISCOMPLETELYASSBACKWARDSSHITSMELLSGOODTHESKYISGREENWITHPINKPOLKADOTSLAND. Come on, as much as you don't want to admit it, somewhere along the line, you started being more afraid and wary of the opposite sex rather than enamored with them. And nobody can blame you. Men are truly hideous creatures, simple and primitive, like deers waiting to blankly wander in the middle of the road to get run over by truck of their own stupidity. And women are bafflingly complicated, like a game that you really want to play but can't because the reading of the fucking rules of the game LASTS FOREVER. Give me back the mystery we had as children. Please? I'll give you a dollar??

(Blog Retraction: I would like to partially retract this last rant. I still think girls are magical creatures, and their non logical weirdness if anything makes them even more appealing to me. Guys still dumb. Thank you for your attention ;))

Well, I think that covers quite a bit. Please people, use the comments below to remember and pine for things that you have lost from the beauty of your childhood. And by the way, there's a button somewhere on this page that lets you SUBSCRIBE TO MY NOTES. You WILL click on it so that you are immediately notified whenever I have churned out more crap. If you do not click on it, you will be deleted from my friends list. :P Oh you think that's an empty threat?? Dont click on it then and see what happens. You have 72 hours.... MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

(Blog Comment: This last past refers to facebook. However this is still applicable to the blog. You will follow it now. Or I will find you. And dismember you. Or something.)

Monday, September 13, 2010

Yes, I realise this isnt going to do much for my already low social regard. But fuck em. Last night I had a dream that I was in contact with famous deceased Nobel Prize Winning physicist Richard Feynman. He was attempting to explain to me how different areas of space in the universe actually have different properties and maybe even different physical laws in operation. (I have come across this theory in my waking life before, but only superficially and didn't pay much attention, possibly my subconscious took it on board, but doubtful. I also had only read about Feynman once or twice in books)

I badgered him with a bunch of impertinent questions which he reacted to in a slightly mocking yet humorous fashion. Reading on Wikipedia this seems to be a central facet of his personality while he was alive. He ended the conversation by saying that he believed God created the universe. Then I went on to have a different dream about fighting monsters with dragons and being in love. The weird thing is that I'm sure I'd never seen a picture of this guy before and when I woke up and plugged him into google images, he looked exactly the same as in my dream.

That's right people, I have the spirit of a Nobel Prize winner at my beck and call. Post questions and I'll relay them on next dream I have. Hahahaha.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

ALRIGHTY THEN!! Welcome to another boring travelogue, the like of which you either love to read or absolutely despise. I promise I will try to make this as interesting as humanly possible. And also factual, because I know if I make up stuff, I'll get taken to task for it by my travel companion Ms Stewart. ;) So here it is, warts and all! Enjoy.

We flew out of Auckland at 5:45 pm on Monday 30th August. I don't know why exactly, but whenever I fly they lump me with the seat RIGHT DOWN THE BACK of the plane. I suspect it might be because my passport photo looks like I'm half Che Guevara and half Charles Manson and so they decide the other passengers don't need to walk past my ugly mug to empty their bowels. The real crap part is that they give you two choices of meals on the plane and you just know that by the time they get all the way to the ass end of the plane you're going to get lumped with some bullshit like Duck fetus in Green Seaweed Sauce. "Yeah sorry, we're out of steak and chips. Have some fucking cow anus with reprocessed cucumber substitute". However today was my lucky day, they actually had the chicken left when they got back to me. It was the poor yokels in front of me who got stuck with the Lamb and Mint Pie. (Seriously WHAT?! I swear these fucking airlines just put one horrible alternative every time just to take the piss). We spent the flight laughing our ass off to episodes of Big Bang Theory. It was sweet.

One of the best parts of going to Fiji is the moment you get off the plane and that wave of tropical heat bliss hits you square in the face. It's even better when you arrive during the day, but it was still good. Of course, I have the foresight of an amoeba and am stuck wearing the sweatshirt and jeans I got on the plane with. We then sample a Fijian beer at the hotel (I should have bought one, shit they were good. It tasted like 50% beer and 50% wine. I hate the taste of nearly everything alcoholic and I even thought it was good). I also got a taste of things to come when Ashleigh decided that chasing after geckoes and frogs to take pictures was a swell idea. We had a deal whereby she took care of and dispensed with any lizards (which freak me out) and I would dispense with any spiders (which freak her out). Yeah, one fucking guess as to which class of creature decided to molest me endlessly with their presence the whole trip and which we saw FUCKING NOTHING OF.

Next day was a rest day before the boat out to heaven on Earth otherwise known as Plantation Island and we basically spent it pretending we were superglued to loungers and chairs by the pool. In a spirited game of 'Would you Rather' it was revealed that yes, I would rather lose my sight than my hearing, and also that Time Travel was my superpower of choice. :P Apparently the spaghetti bolognese at dinner was pretty good too.

The next day we got taken to the Port (basically a beautiful place for exceedingly rich people. I was regaled with Ashleigh's planning out loud to seduce and marry one of the rich launch owners so she could 'dig some gold' many a time. I offered to be their bell boy when and if she succeeded, as long as the rest of the team consisted of beautiful women. That way, one of them pretty much HAD to go for me. :P) and went across the sea in a 50 minute boat ride to the island. Basically I don't need to say anything... just go on to Google Images and run a search for what it's like out there. You will probably sell your relatives to get there. I've been twice now. I'll try not to gloat. :P Once you are arrive you are regaled with song from the natives and given free shell necklaces and welcome drinks. The only downer was the weather which decided to be cloudy and windy. Complaining about this is somewhat akin though to someone giving you a chocolate cake for free and then bitching about there not being a cherry.

I believe the first night was the night of the first (and unfortunately not the last) gecko invasion. Two of the fuckers found their way inside the room (more than a room, more like its own little abode) somehow. Ashleigh cleverly managed to chase one of them out but the other proved elusive, so instead of helping me she decided to mercilessly taunt me by shunting it over towards my bed repeatedly. Wench. :P

The activities they run on the island are in general, fucking awesome. Daily snorkelling to the reefs (greatest thing ever), dolphin safaris, semi submersible boat (which is about sixty million times better than you expect, because they take you out and sprinkle food in the water, and the windows are literally covered over with tropical fish of all sorts, thousands of them! Pictures of this phenomenon will soon be forthcoming on my facebook. Plus, Ashleigh has the awesome foresight to bring underwater cameras, so hopefully those photos come out awesome as well. There's also kayaks, jetskis, parasailing, volleyball, frog races, crab races, island hopping excursions, fishing (which both of us were somewhat morally opposed to after seeing the absolute stunning beauty of the fish that were around). They also had an island Mr. Universe competition which I probably would have won hands down if I had entered. But I thought other people's egos needed it more, so I refrained. :P

Okay so that's complete crap. :P

The next day finally the weather turned it on for us. 30 degrees, blue skies, palm trees, clear waters, snorkels and amazing marine life. Couldn't really complain about any of it really ;) Well except one thing. THE FREAKING GECKOES WHO DECIDED IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE SEX IN THE NIGHT INCHES FROM MY BED WHEN THE LIGHTS WERE OUT . Fucking mortifying. One of my favourite things about the island is that at dinner (eating on the sand is AWESOME) at about 7pm a native dressed warrior runs past accompanied by drums with about 20 little kids running behind him with a flaming torch and lights all the torches lined up along the sand. Pretty epic.

Basically here is how a trip to Fiji usually works I have found. You go in with all these plans to be as active as possible, run around, play volleyball, stay up all night, drink yourself into a frenzy etc and then you get there and the sheer tropical blissful laziness takes over! Then you decide lying on the beach reading books, tanning and snorkelling ALL DAY BABY before pottering off to bed early is the best course of action. Seriously snorkelling out on the reef whilst scores and scores of fish swim all around you is an experience that rockets straight to the top five of your life and freaking stays there.

Since so far all we've heard about is embarrassing things about me, I have to mention for parity's sake that Ashleigh did in fact choke because she was too lazy to swallow the spit build up in her mouth. Sorry ;) In her defense, that is what Fiji does to you. ;) In other news from the socially unacceptable file, we also discovered a common affinity for the cheeseball 80s pop of Phil Collins. I for one, am totally not ashamed of this. 'Something Happened on the Way to Heaven', 'Another Day in Paradise', 'I Wish it would Rain' and 'Dont Lose My Number' are freaking CLASSICS.

In one last story, I cultivated a friendship with two clownfish under the sea (which one was Nemo is debatable). I saw them swimming beneath me then I swam over someplace else and saw two more of them. Then I swam somewhere else and saw two more. Then it clicked that they were same ones and had grown attached to me. Unfortunately this was an unexpected development and so I did not have enough time to convert them to my aquatic followers for my world domination army. (It's like my friend Dave has always maintained. YOU CANT TRUST THE FISH. THEY'RE PLOTTING).

So basically all in all, it was incredible, the snorkelling has to be seen to be believed, the geckoes didn't kill me and I didn't win Mr Island Universe. Maybe next time. Photos will soon be forthcoming. And if my description has tempted someone into booking a trip... please let me know. I want to go back ;)

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Alright bear with me on this one, and I shall tell you a tale of the greatest combination of foods ever assembled in my mouth.

Today I have stumbled upon the aftertaste holy grail.

I ate a packet of chips, Chargrilled chicken and herb flavour. They were good. Then I ate a packet of beef flavoured two minute noodles. They were good. And then it struck, like some sort of blessing from God. The mixture of herb, chicken and beef flavouring that lasted in my mouth for the next four hours was something so ineffably strange but so damn alluring. Never would I have imagined such a thing. Seriously, it was like some sort of taste puzzle had been put together and formed an image of the most beautiful tropical landscape ever before seen by human eyes.